1. Technical Field
This invention relates to an apparatus for processing a picture displayed on a display device such as a CRT display. More particularly, the invention relates to a picture processing apparatus so adapted that picture processing for feature recognition of an object in the picture can be limited by a window pattern.
2. Background Art
The state of an operation performed by an industrial robot or the like can be photographed by a video camera and displayed on a display device. In a conventional picture processing apparatus, the picture from the video camera is stored in a buffer memory such as a frame memory having a storage area corresponding to the display frame, and discrimination of the position of an object contained in the picture data and recognition of the shape of the object are realized by executing predetermined picture processing with regard to all information in the frame memory.
With the conventional picture processing apparatus of this type, there are cases where the desired results can be obtained without performing processing with regard to all picture data in the frame memory. However, in a case where picture processing is executed by a picture processor for picture data stored in a frame memory, picture processing based on all data in the designated frame memory is unavoidable since the processor does not have an area limiting function. Consequently, complicated data processing such as filtering processing is accompanied by an increase in working memory capacity or prolonged processing time, thus making efficient picture processing impossible.